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Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.